Anton Diffring

Ray Bradbury's best-selling science fiction masterpiece about a future without books takes on a chillingly realistic dimension in Fahrenheit 451. Montag (Oskar Werner), a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden books, meets a revolutionary school teacher (Julie Christie) who dares to read. Suddenly, he finds himself a hunted fugitive, to choose not only between his rebellious mistress and his pleasure-seeking conformist wife (also played by Julie Christie), but between personal safety and intellectual freedom.

The Blue Max is highly unusual among Hollywood films, not just for being a large-scale drama set during the generally overlooked World War I, but in concentrating on air combat as seen entirely from the German point of view. The story focuses on a lower-class officer, Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), and his obsessive quest to win a Blue Max, a medal awarded for shooting down 20 enemy aircraft. Around this are subplots concerning a propaganda campaign by James Mason's pragmatic general, rivalry with a fellow officer (Jeremy Kemp), and a love affair with a decadent countess (Ursula Andress).